


This Isn't What I Wanted

by CobaltPhosphene



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Mentions of brainwashing, Mentions of canon-typical violence, Smoking, angry words are exchanged, cult content, ex-friendship, swearing ofc because it's Tracey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22395094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltPhosphene/pseuds/CobaltPhosphene
Summary: Tracey has a late night conversation with a visitor who's not really here. Faith visits her this way from time to time, and isn't it bittersweet to think of how they used to be, used to hang out on late nights like this when they were friends—but now they're not. They're not, and never will be again...and Tracey isn't sure if this is actually Faith she's talking to, or if it's just the loneliness in her own head conjuring up the memory of someone she used to care about. Cares about still, maybe, with how much it still embitters and hurts her to think of Rachel and how they used to be.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	This Isn't What I Wanted

“You’re smoking again.” There was a note of disappointment in Faith’s voice and an almost parental disapproval that, mixed with the little almost exasperated little curl of a smile dancing about her expression, made it feel very much like Faith was humoring her.

Tracey snorted, pulling the lit cigarette away from her own lips with an abrupt, angry motion to flick the ash off of it impatiently. “Yeah? ‘s rich coming from _you_ , _Faith,_ playing daddy’s little flower girl from on top of Mount Smokey with your _Angels_ and hanger-ons.”  
  
Faith sighed, looking away to one side, having the air of long-suffering patience, which was utter bullshit in Tracey’s opinion—”Faith” of all people knew Tracey well. She wasn’t going to pretend everything was alright, like she was happy to fucking see her ex-best-friend once again as yet another damned “hallucination” or what the fuck ever the Bliss was.  
  
It happened often at night, particularly the nights Tracey couldn’t sleep…or she hoped it was only on those nights. Tracey did not need the mental image of Faith creeping on her while slept. Didn’t want the reminder of waking up to finding a blanket tucked in around her whenever she’d fallen asleep somewhere uncomfortable, as Tracey did sometimes.  
  
There shouldn’t have been anyone who did that for her anymore. No more surprises. It’d almost made Tracey cry in rage the first time it’d happened again, after…  
  
after.  
  
She’d found out later it was from Virgil, and anger had given way to relief. But a small part of her head always wondered if Virgil was always the one who left a blanket draped across her shoulders.  
  
Tracey wasn’t in the mood for this. Not tonight.  
  
“Get lost Faith. I’m not in a mood to talk to fucking ghosts.”  
  
“Oh? And who you gonna call if I don’t?” Faith asked, turning to give Tracey a coy and playful look.  
  
Once upon a time, the answer would’ve been a matching playful smirk along with the answer _Ghost Busters._  
  
That’d been one of their favorite shared movies, once.  
  
It pissed Tracey off how it just made her feel sad to see Faith—Rachel—doing that now, like nothing had changed. It was moments like this that made Tracey uncertain if this was “real” or just all in her head. It felt more like the latter. Like missing her once best friend. It made her feel sick.  
  
“Fuck off.” Tracey’s words tasted bitter in her mouth, like ashes. Lies. Had it all been a lie, their entire friendship, or had it been real, and just…gone wrong?  
  
The little smile Faith had been wearing withered away, like a flower caught in the frost. Typical. She looked away with a sigh. “This isn’t what I wanted.”  
  
“Oh? And what **_did_** you want, if it wasn’t to go play princess in your own little kingdom of make believe?” Tracey asked, throwing the remains of her cigarette down with a vicious abruptness before grinding it out under her heel with a great deal of prejudice. “To pretend those aren’t fucking _people_ you’ve turned into your own damn puppets and mindless dolls to dance to whatever tune you decide to play? Grow the fuck up and own up to what you’ve done, what you’ve fucking _become_ , Rachel, and stop living in a goddamn dream. And stay the hell out of mine or whatever the hell this is, a day dream, hallucination, or whatever other bullshit Bliss fuckery it is. I’ve told you already and I’ll say it again: get lost.”  
  
Faith looked at her, now suddenly brittle and with a flash of actual hurt and _anger_ that was there like the sparks from a fire striker—bright and hot one moment, but gone the next without something to burn. But sparks were dangerous like that: they could catch and smoulder, for a long, long time, without giving away that something was burning until the fire had already caught on.  
  
“You could’ve stayed.” The words were short. Choppy. The closest _Rachel_ ever got to actually arguing, _fighting,_ and it was with Tracey. How ironic. “You could’ve stayed and helped us build something _wonderful_ together, Tracey. You could’ve stayed with _me.”  
  
_“Oh this old fucking bullshit again,” Tracey said, lip curling upwards in a show of disgust, nose wrinkling to pull her entire expression into a sneer. “I told you the Project was fucking bad news once I’d caught on, but you didn’t fucking want to listen,”  
  
“That’s because it isn’t!” Faith insisted, fists balling in the sides of her skirt as her entire posture stiffened with affront—good. She was actually angry enough to fucking look the part.  
  
“It fucking is and you know it Faith. You’ve got people walking on their hands and knees along that godless “Pilgrimage” of yours until they’re leaving bloody trails of handprints and busting kneecaps against the stone, if they’re not fucking eaten by a goddamned mountain lion along the way. Oh and let’s not forget all the people you’re fucking **murdering** or turning into yet more mindless Angels to play fucking house with. Can’t even stand to do your own damn gardening and risk getting your frocks and petticoats dirty?”  
  
There wasn’t much actual substance to that last statement other than the intention to spite Faith, given that the other woman had taken to walking around _barefoot_ like some hippie woodstock lovechild who hadn’t ever heard of broken glass fragments, or splinters, or dog shit or such.  
  
“We do what we have to do to accomplish our goals, Tracey,” Faith said, expression actually turning a touch sullen at that. Tracey knew it was because Faith knew that her usual religiously-themed clap-trap about the Project and the Father’s “Collapse” didn’t do anything except piss Tracey off even _more._ “You’d know that if you’d stop _running_ and look around you at the opportunity you’ve been presented.”  
  
“Oh for— _fuck off_ with that nonsense Faith, joining a goddamned doomsday cult isn’t a fucking opportunity!”  
  
“You’re talking like that because you’re _afraid.”_ Faith said, the glint in her eyes like the flick of a pocket knife blade pulled open in the moonlight. “That’s why you run, that’s why you always run, whether something’s good or bad. You don’t _trust_. You never trust. You never trusted _me_. You don’t trust _anyone._ But I can _help_.” Faith reached out to her with both hands, beseechingly.  
  
“Let me help you, Tracey, and you won’t have to be afraid anymore. You won’t have to be _alone_ anymore. You have a place here, in our family. You just have to have a little faith, in me, in _us._ Please. I’m not asking much. Just trust me, this one time. I can make a good life for us, for everyone. Please, Tracey.” _  
  
_And didn’t that take the entire fucking cake. Faith actually sounded like she fucking **believed** what she was saying. **Believed** that she could _**do**_ all that. _**Believed**_ that any good would come of all this blood and fear and pain and despair and all this…this…fucking awful shitty crap.  
  
It made Tracey so damned tired. She didn’t want to deal with people. Not like this. Not if they were going to just, fucking, turn around and hop on the crazy bandwagon and _leave_ her.  
  
Tracey wasn’t an easy person to get along with, she knew. But she tried. She tried to make up for that, as best she could. She’d _tried_ to be there for Rachel, time after time after time again, to do what she could to support her _friend._

And what good had that done, in the end?  
  
“That’s what you say to everyone now.” Bitterness, rather than anger, colored Tracey’s words. It was true, she’d heard enough from other people’s stories of what Faith said to them, what Faith said to make them feel _special,_ like they were _loved,_ like they were _cared for_ with her. And Tracey knew Faith didn’t care about much of anyone at all, among those she pulled in with those fucking honeyed words and innocent doe eyed glances.  
  
The way maybe she’d pulled Tracey in, back when they were younger. Back when Tracey had thought they were really, truly friends.  
  
She didn’t bother to answer Faith, knowing the ghost of her former friend would just continue insisting that she was _right_ when she got like this, using soft words and circular logic to exhaust a person into submission, to make someone feel like shit for disagreeing with such an “innocent” and “well meaning” young woman.  
  
Lies. It was all lies. It’d always been lies. Tracey had to remember that. She couldn’t doubt…or she’d just be another one of the ghosts Faith would send packing to shamble on in as a mindless Angel to kill whoever the dainty little _Herald_ pointed at, until Tracey wasn’t even a shell anymore, and was thrown away and forgotten. Just like how Faith had forgotten and thrown her away before. Thrown their _friendship_ away.  
  
She turned her back on the apparition, ghost, projection or what the fuck ever it was.  
  
“Tracey…”  
  
She didn’t answer, just kept walking, heading for the stairs to head back inside the Jail.  
  
Faith’s voice sounded forlorn, but not so forlorn as the silence that followed afterwards.  
  
It was times like this that Tracey hated, hated everything with a blind, pain-riddled kind of emotion that felt like she should be thrashing about like an animal in its death throes. But she didn’t thrash. She simply opened the door, and walked inside, footsteps echoing hollow along the tiled floor and bare walls.  
  
She didn’t know if Rachel had ever been her friend, now or back then. She didn’t know if those night time conversations were just her own consciousness manifesting and talking to her, or if Faith was actually fucking there, talking to her.  
  
…she didn’t know if any of it had been real. Any of it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Written from an ask game prompt sent by Chyrstis on tumblr. This was fun to write, and made me think more on Tracey and Faith’s potential interactions and such during the time of the Reaping, which I appreciate. Thank you for the prompt Chyrstis!! :D ♥


End file.
